USPS To Run Summer Postage Sale Again

The U.S. Postal Service is planning to run a summer sale on standard mail letters and flats postage just as it did last year.

The sale will run between July 1 and Sept 30.

To be eligible, a mailer must send out more than 360,000 pieces during that period, according to the USPS.

The USPS first tried this idea last year as a way to boost use of mail, which has been falling for the past few years.

Last year, the USPS Board of Governors, noting the state of the economy noted that “the standard mail volume incentive pricing program offered mailers an incentive “to improve above their expected performance during the summer months, which is typically a low-volume period for the Postal Service and its customers.”

Final details of the current program are not yet available, but under last year’s scheme, mailers who sent out at least 1 million standard letters and/or flats during an earlier designated time period were eligible.

In last year’s program, mailers received a rebate of 30% on any mail volume during the sale period which exceeded a threshold established based on their previous mail volume. Mailers were not permitted to move campaigns from other time periods into the sale period, and the USPS looked at total annual mail volume to ensure against this.

Last year, Mailers paid full postage during the summer. After the program ran its course, the USPS determined the rebate due to each mailer is due. Rebates were credited to the mailer’s permit account.

For fuller details on what happened last year, click here http://directmag.com/mail/news/postal-authorize-summer-sale-0505/index.html